The only way I made progress in latin was when I bought a few books and started reading, beginning from (modern) children fairy tales. This actually gave me a lasting knowledge which up to this date allows me to read a simple latin text or guess a meaning of a word in English or French (neither language is native to me).
Speaking latin of course takes it way further but I think the direction is the same: learn it as a living language not as as a dead one. Starting from declensions and cases gets you nowhere, judging from my friends who learned it in school for years with zero results. Instead, start using the language, if only for reading. Then you can return to grammar later if you ever want to become proficient.
I also recommend this guy [1] who not only shares the same approach but apparently have fully dedicated himself to it. He has books, ebooks, audiobooks, a mobile app and a youtube podcast, all in latin. I can't cease to be impressed by the effort and the quality of the content. In comparison the Duolingo latin course is a complete disappointment.
I started with LLPSI along with Oerberg's companion books (Colloquia Personarum, Fabellae Latinae, Fabulae Syrae). After that I read Hyginus' Fabulae and then
Commentarii de Bello Gallico by Caesar. Since then I've read more Caesar, Nepos, Apuleius, Seneca, some Livy, some Catullus, some Cicero, and I'm currently reading Ovid. I did this by reading Latin for at least 1 hour every day since the first COVID lockdown in 2020, even if I was sick or not feeling it I made sure to get my Latin reading in. I did do a lot of grammar drills in the beginning, and I made an Anki deck for vocab. Grammar drills definitely help big time, along with jumping in head first with a book like LLPSI and reading from the get go is the way to go IMO.
In any case, the demise of the use of Latin in the church…
It’s actually making a comeback in the Catholic Church with the growing popularity of the traditional Latin Mass, which is celebrated around the world by various communities, much to the chagrin of some persons presently of influence and/or in leadership.
It’s much rarer to encounter the reformed Mass (missal of 1969-latest, i.e. reforms following Vatican II) offered in Latin, but it is done in some places. The communities offering the traditional Latin Mass use the 1962 edition or a 20th Century edition predating the changes to Holy Week in 1955.
I'm not sure the recent revival of interest in the Latin mass has much bearing on the number of people who are actually learning the language.
Most people I know who participate at Mass in Latin don't know the language and make little, if any, attempts to learn it. There is often a complete reliance on translations where prayers are recited in Latin but then still need to be read in the English side of the missal to be understood.
There is also an odd, yet quite outspoken (online), contingent of people who promote the Latin Mass while simultaneously downplaying the importance of learning Latin for having a fuller view of history and the science of theology.
> It’s a pity we stopped using Latin in favour of scientific pidgin English as universal language in scientific communications
As an ESL speaker and scientific writer: why?
For people fluent in several languages, which of those languages is chosen to communicate makes little difference. I'd argue all (sufficiently mature) languages work equally well for transmitting information to other people fluent in that language.
So choosing the language most people you want to communicate with are fluent in makes sense.
If you favor Latin simply for aesthetic reasons, I recommend choosing a more widespread modern language, that has non-pidgin characteristics. French or German (the latter might require a puritan style guide to go with it) would work well.
The mathematician Giuseppe Peano even suggested a simplified Latin without declensions as a scientific/mathematical language in 1903. He even wrote several of his works in it, although not many others adopted it.
We don't know. What's mentioned is informative, but certainly not decisive. Language is way too noisy for simple conclusions. E.g., spelling errors aren't exclusively based on phonetic similarity, and even if they were, their absence proves little.
Since the text mention difference between educated, less educated and uneducated people (though not illiterate, in that time?!), it would be fair to mention that maybe not everyone in the Latinophonie would pronounce words the same way.
Warning: I'm not an expert on this or on anything.
W. Sidney Allen's old Vox Latinahttps://www.cambridge.org/core/books/vox-latina/0D460CEF06E5... is apparently still the standard starting reference for classical Latin pronunciation, at least for English-speakers. (Many nineteenth-century German philologists died to bring us this information, of course.) People such as Luke Ranieri on YouTube use a version of Allen's system, though a number of people including Ranieri claim that there should be five vowel qualities rather than the seven described by Allen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH8E5RKq31I .
Note that if you want to speak Latin that's roughly faithful to how it was spoken up to (but not necessarily including) late antiquity, pronunciation is actually less important than quantity: basically, using clearly distinguishable short and long vowels in the right places (plus not running together double consonants in some places). I suppose it's similarly important to get the stress right, but at least that's generally agreed to be pretty easy. Classical Latin quantity feels weird and unnatural to English-speakers, and to Romance-language speakers, German-speakers ... : words often include one or two or three unstressed long vowels before getting to the stressed syllable, which might or might not itself have a long vowel. Even people who advocate for (classically-)correct quantity often don't consistently get it right.
This is lovely. And it's great to have it both in English and Spanish because it makes it much easier to guess the sounds from the explanations as you can compare.
New life goal unlocked: live in a farm away from any computers and learn latin.
OT but... modern Icelandic is close enough to Old Norse that a reasoned mashup of Icelandic and Latin (sans inflections?) might start to resemble contemporary English. It would be a fun exercise anyways.
Funny how the use of the acute accent instead of the macron for long vowels completely changes the “feel” of the written language to me. Makes it look less classy.
Being used to the more traditional "ā"/... for long vowels, I found it very weird when opening the page, I was first wondering if it was actual Latin or an artificial language based on it.
Please don't take it as pedantic, but iirc the acute accent is modern and not a standard feature of classical Latin. While "Európæa" might be used in some modern contexts or to reflect contemporary pronunciation, it wouldn't be common in strict classical Latin texts.
I had Latin in school for seven years but we never learned to use it in a conversation. It was mostly vocabulary, grammar and translation of texts into my native language and interpreting/discussing them.
It did help to have an easier access to learn other languages. But in hindsight I would have loved to be able to talk in Latin.
I enjoy learning about languages and their histories, and this was a fun read. One thing I would say though is that stating a certain pronunciation is "correct" never sits well with me. Language is incredibly fluid, and typically when a certain pronunciation is deemed 'correct' it's related to people in power and how they pronounce(d) it.
There are of course regional variation where claiming one is more 'correct' than the other doesn't hold up well (north USA vs south USA), but even further I'm sure most would take offense at the idea that everyone in the US mispronounces words where they differ from British pronunciation. (I know, both languages evolved independently since the countries split, but you get my point).
The article only uses the word “correct” twice: once in the context of aspiration (_per_ should not be pronounced as _pher_) and once when talking about the Latin _r_, which is markedly different from English _r_.
In the rest of the article, they seem to prefer saying that certain pronunciations “should be avoided” or that the speaker should pay attention to a specific distinction (such as vowel lengths or syllable boundaries).
It doesn't strike me as elitist or gatekeeping. It's making an honest effort to communicate the information you need to sound as authentically Latin as possible and to avoid speaking with an English accent.
> One thing I would say though is that stating a certain pronunciation is "correct" never sits well with me.
Who cares how it sits with you? There is a "correct" way in every aspect of language - accent, spelling, etc.
> Language is incredibly fluid, and typically when a certain pronunciation is deemed 'correct' it's related to people in power and how they pronounce(d) it.
Probably. But somebody has to set the standard.
> There are of course regional variation where claiming one is more 'correct' than the other doesn't hold up well (north USA vs south USA),
Bad example. There is most definitely a "correct" american pronunciation. It's why much of news/media has a neutral american accent. Most americans, from whatever region, can speak it to some degree or another.
> but even further I'm sure most would take offense at the idea that everyone in the US mispronounces words where they differ from British pronunciation.
Who would take offense? Not me. Not anybody I know. Especially since american english is the dominant form of english and probably will be the standard around the world.
> but you get my point).
You have no point. Just misinformed silly gripes. All languages standardize in some form or another whether it be accents, pronunciation, spelling, script, etc.
[+] [-] alexey-salmin|1 year ago|reply
Speaking latin of course takes it way further but I think the direction is the same: learn it as a living language not as as a dead one. Starting from declensions and cases gets you nowhere, judging from my friends who learned it in school for years with zero results. Instead, start using the language, if only for reading. Then you can return to grammar later if you ever want to become proficient.
I also recommend this guy [1] who not only shares the same approach but apparently have fully dedicated himself to it. He has books, ebooks, audiobooks, a mobile app and a youtube podcast, all in latin. I can't cease to be impressed by the effort and the quality of the content. In comparison the Duolingo latin course is a complete disappointment.
[1] https://latinitium.com/legentibus/
[+] [-] AntoniusBlock|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] gone35|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelsbradley|1 year ago|reply
https://www.latinmass.live/
It’s much rarer to encounter the reformed Mass (missal of 1969-latest, i.e. reforms following Vatican II) offered in Latin, but it is done in some places. The communities offering the traditional Latin Mass use the 1962 edition or a 20th Century edition predating the changes to Holy Week in 1955.
[+] [-] TheFreim|1 year ago|reply
Most people I know who participate at Mass in Latin don't know the language and make little, if any, attempts to learn it. There is often a complete reliance on translations where prayers are recited in Latin but then still need to be read in the English side of the missal to be understood.
There is also an odd, yet quite outspoken (online), contingent of people who promote the Latin Mass while simultaneously downplaying the importance of learning Latin for having a fuller view of history and the science of theology.
[+] [-] froh|1 year ago|reply
there is no such thing as a "growing popularity" of the mass in latin.
because, surprise, the spells work just fine in any language. because, surprise again, Jesus spoke Aramaic. and the educated spoke Greek.
PP Francis is putting the whole misguided "Jesus sacrifice" liturgy and it's backwards thinking back to where it belongs: history books.
[+] [-] niemandhier|1 year ago|reply
Gauss still wrote in Latin 1801, his Disquisitiones Arithmeticae are a marvel.
Up until a few years back my university would still have accepted PHD thesis in Latin, they ditched it after no one had done it for almost a century.
[+] [-] pbmonster|1 year ago|reply
As an ESL speaker and scientific writer: why?
For people fluent in several languages, which of those languages is chosen to communicate makes little difference. I'd argue all (sufficiently mature) languages work equally well for transmitting information to other people fluent in that language.
So choosing the language most people you want to communicate with are fluent in makes sense.
If you favor Latin simply for aesthetic reasons, I recommend choosing a more widespread modern language, that has non-pidgin characteristics. French or German (the latter might require a puritan style guide to go with it) would work well.
[+] [-] jhbadger|1 year ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latino_sine_flexione
[+] [-] ryao|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] kensai|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] AndrewDucker|1 year ago|reply
Reminds me this video on what Shakespeare's original pronunciation sounded like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s
[+] [-] defrost|1 year ago|reply
Boulevard of Broken Dreams in Classical Latin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mip30YF1iuo
[+] [-] tgv|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] dghf|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ryao|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] psychoslave|1 year ago|reply
Nice to see a old-fashioned webpage by the way.
[+] [-] leoc|1 year ago|reply
W. Sidney Allen's old Vox Latina https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/vox-latina/0D460CEF06E5... is apparently still the standard starting reference for classical Latin pronunciation, at least for English-speakers. (Many nineteenth-century German philologists died to bring us this information, of course.) People such as Luke Ranieri on YouTube use a version of Allen's system, though a number of people including Ranieri claim that there should be five vowel qualities rather than the seven described by Allen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH8E5RKq31I .
Note that if you want to speak Latin that's roughly faithful to how it was spoken up to (but not necessarily including) late antiquity, pronunciation is actually less important than quantity: basically, using clearly distinguishable short and long vowels in the right places (plus not running together double consonants in some places). I suppose it's similarly important to get the stress right, but at least that's generally agreed to be pretty easy. Classical Latin quantity feels weird and unnatural to English-speakers, and to Romance-language speakers, German-speakers ... : words often include one or two or three unstressed long vowels before getting to the stressed syllable, which might or might not itself have a long vowel. Even people who advocate for (classically-)correct quantity often don't consistently get it right.
(And yes, Allen also did publish a Vox Graeca https://www.cambridge.org/ie/universitypress/subjects/classi... , too, but be careful: the pronunciation of Ancient Greek is a question that might actually get you into a fistfight https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BybLbHPU7Qc&list=PLQQL5IeNgc... .)
[+] [-] adlpz|1 year ago|reply
New life goal unlocked: live in a farm away from any computers and learn latin.
[+] [-] euroderf|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] emblaegh|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ale42|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Vox_Leone|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] psychoslave|1 year ago|reply
https://metacpan.org/dist/Lingua-Romana-Perligata/view/lib/L...
[+] [-] Bairfhionn|1 year ago|reply
It did help to have an easier access to learn other languages. But in hindsight I would have loved to be able to talk in Latin.
[+] [-] ryao|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Insanity|1 year ago|reply
There are of course regional variation where claiming one is more 'correct' than the other doesn't hold up well (north USA vs south USA), but even further I'm sure most would take offense at the idea that everyone in the US mispronounces words where they differ from British pronunciation. (I know, both languages evolved independently since the countries split, but you get my point).
[+] [-] Timwi|1 year ago|reply
In the rest of the article, they seem to prefer saying that certain pronunciations “should be avoided” or that the speaker should pay attention to a specific distinction (such as vowel lengths or syllable boundaries).
It doesn't strike me as elitist or gatekeeping. It's making an honest effort to communicate the information you need to sound as authentically Latin as possible and to avoid speaking with an English accent.
[+] [-] stonesthrowaway|1 year ago|reply
Who cares how it sits with you? There is a "correct" way in every aspect of language - accent, spelling, etc.
> Language is incredibly fluid, and typically when a certain pronunciation is deemed 'correct' it's related to people in power and how they pronounce(d) it.
Probably. But somebody has to set the standard.
> There are of course regional variation where claiming one is more 'correct' than the other doesn't hold up well (north USA vs south USA),
Bad example. There is most definitely a "correct" american pronunciation. It's why much of news/media has a neutral american accent. Most americans, from whatever region, can speak it to some degree or another.
> but even further I'm sure most would take offense at the idea that everyone in the US mispronounces words where they differ from British pronunciation.
Who would take offense? Not me. Not anybody I know. Especially since american english is the dominant form of english and probably will be the standard around the world.
> but you get my point).
You have no point. Just misinformed silly gripes. All languages standardize in some form or another whether it be accents, pronunciation, spelling, script, etc.
[+] [-] asdffdasy|1 year ago|reply